Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 21:15:41 09/28/03
Go up one level in this thread
On September 27, 2003 at 22:10:15, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On September 26, 2003 at 16:49:22, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On September 25, 2003 at 23:02:20, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>
>>>On September 25, 2003 at 12:53:42, Christophe Theron wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 25, 2003 at 09:41:05, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On September 25, 2003 at 09:15:09, José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On September 25, 2003 at 08:26:21, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>ICGA asked me to Call for participation in the world championship 2003.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>So far only 3 programs subscribed to join the world championship computerchess.
>>>>>>>DIEP is one of them, i guess Brutus the other one.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>And there three types of people: those who can count and those who can not.
>>>>>>José (:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>P.S. Good luck and lots of fun the world championship!
>>>>>
>>>>>Ah just had email from Stefan, they all didn't know you had to register 'so
>>>>>soon'.
>>>>>
>>>>>Usually world champs most things get organized at the tournament day itself,
>>>>>i remember especially the paniccing phase 1 short before the world champs
>>>>>started in October 1997, Paris :)
>>>>>
>>>>>Not a single organizer there from the home organisation (so not ICGA) spoke a
>>>>>word English (and my english isn't that good either, for sure in 1997 it was
>>>>>horror & co too), Dutch or German and my French is horrible, so i just sat
>>>>>down at a chair, installed my computer and just guessed what the hand movements
>>>>>of the home organisation meant.
>>>>>
>>>>>They must have guessed in advance to only receive French speaking participants,
>>>>>a normal assumption for French organisers :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>That's really unfair. The 1997 World Championship organization in Paris was
>>>>great. Remember that we were playing not in some obscure university hall, we
>>>>were playing in the "Palais de la Bourse".
>>>
>>>There were good things and bad things. i bet it was great for french speaking.
>>>
>>>bad was all the neonazi demonstrations and the real long waiting times to just
>>>get past the 2 security checks each time.
>>>
>>>bad was not having any internet there or any other contacts to the outside
>>>world, i would not be able to imagine in 2003 to be without internet.
>>>
>>>publicity was real bad of the tournament.
>>>
>>>nothing online. really nothing. i remember thorsten czub phoning during the
>>>rounds to the outside world at his mobile phone the results, otherwise they
>>>wouldn't even know the results.
>>>
>>>So publicity was non existing.
>>>
>>>Considering the huge staff of frenchmen running in panic mode around during the
>>>whole tournament that was really a bloody shame, but what we would call here
>>>'typical french chaosmanagement' :)
>>>
>>>Bad was that it took so long to just get outside of the building to just get 1
>>>small bread for example.
>>>
>>>Good was that each morning when walking to the tournament hall i could order for
>>>if i remember well 6 franc or something a big fresh bread at a breadshop. That
>>>tasted real good!
>>>
>>>bad was fact that there was still too many world titles then. There were just 3
>>>competitors if i remember well for the professional world title. Virtual chess,
>>>CSTal and Fritz.
>>>
>>>Good was that after a few days there was very cheap drinks IN the tournament
>>>hall supplied by organisation.
>>>
>>>Good was that it was possible to walk around without problems in the tournament
>>>hall, in 2001 maastricht for example i found the location a bloody shame. They
>>>corrected that great in 2002 though in Maastricht.
>>
>>
>>
>>OK, so in short the good parts were the french bread and free drinks and that it
>>was possible to walk during the rounds.
>>
>>If you like the french bread you should try our chess programs. Some of them
>>would give you a good run for the money. ;)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>The main problem I remember there was AMD. They sponsored the event and provided
>>>
>>>Oh the hardware, well Kallisto was sponsored a PII300 by intel. Kallisto however
>>>was still 16 bits and way faster (like 50% or some insane big diff) on the
>>>233Mhz K7 that Jan Louwman had managed to get too.
>>>
>>>So officially Kallisto ran on that PII300 but in reality diep ran at it. You
>>>couldn't get that cpu in any shop at that time.
>>>
>>>When i entered with that machine the tournament hall i was amazed to see that
>>>half the tournament was carrying a PII300 with him :)
>>>
>>>The toledo2000 programmer was not understanding that his DOS just went up to
>>>64MB hashtables instead of the full 128MB that he had on the PII300 machine :)
>>>
>>>But i guess the real bad thing from world champs 1997 in my memory is fact that
>>>only search depth mattered there really, assuming a debugged program. I lost
>>>game after game thanks to simple tactical errors. 8 ply search for a few moves
>>>and DANG opponent starts smiling "i win a piece!".
>>
>>
>>
>>Ah well, so that can be put in the "good" column I guess: you discovered there
>>that in chess your are helpless if your opponent outsearches you significantly,
>>and that you'd better debug your program before the start of the tournament.
>>
>>You could have discovered that at home, but well. Wisdom is wisdom.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>In RGCC at the time some people like Bruce and Bob just posted their believe
>>>that search depth mattered and the rest was not important at all, especially a
>>>good evaluation wouldn't matter at all.
>>>
>>>Well how they were proven wrong later of course.
>>
>>
>>
>>As far as I know nothing has been proved, either way, in this area.
>
>Note that as usual, Vincenct is just like a Christmas turkey. Full of
>crap.
That's indeed a nice image. I love it! :)
>If you look at _any_ quote of mine in the past, you see "if all else is
>equal, search depth is a killer."
Yes, my observation too.
I was expecting the so called "dimishing returns" from greater search depths,
but I must admit that still today, even searching around 14-16 plies in the
middlegame at long time controls, a small search depth advantage is still a
notable advantage.
Human chess players have a problem with this concept, but I think it is because
the human brain has a difficult time with deep and complex sequences. Computers
don't and are still able to get a significant improvement from deeper searches.
>>The strength of computers at chess comes from a combination of good search
>>techniques and reasonable evaluation, with some emphasis still today on search.
>>
>>Don't forget what you have learned in 1997...
>>
>
>Probably nothing, other than "if you flap your arms you _still_ can't
>fly". :)
Yes, in this case flapping faster does not provide any visible gain. So Vincent
must be right, in this specific area. :)
I think he is going on in the same idea. Now the trick is to flap 500 arms at
the same time. Good luck...
>>>I remember Ernst running around the tournament hall crying loud that he hit 1
>>>million nodes a second.
>>>
>>>A statement done by Peter Gillgasch over the email (he has programmed the
>>>darkthought in alpha assembly, i guess he knew more from it than Heinz still
>>>does) was very correct, and still stands in 2003: "darkthought can search so
>>>deep thanks to a very simple reason; it is positional so stupid that nearly
>>>*everything* gives a beta cutoff to it".
>>
>>
>>
>>So stupid that a bunch of programs were helpless against it.
>>
>>What is your definition of stupidity? Achieving effectiveness with means that
>>are not to your taste?
>
>Stupid == any program except "diep".
>
>Haven't you figured that out yet??
I think you are right. :)
Christophe
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